


braids

by memorysdaughter



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Hair Braiding, Hair Brushing, Major Illness, Post-Coital Cuddling, a hilarious hair-related incident involving a fire-breathing monster, mostly Percy just adores Pike's hair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 16:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8409202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memorysdaughter/pseuds/memorysdaughter
Summary: In which Percy discovers he's terrible at hair-braiding, and in which he realizes it doesn't matter quite so much.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a gorgeous piece of fan art on Tumblr of Pike with her hair down.

I.

“Percy, this is silly.”

“It’s not silly.”

“I look ridiculous.”

“You look beautiful.”

“Why didn’t you just ask Vex to do this?” Pike twists her hands and frets up at him.

“Because Syldor Vessar is in town, and as much as I would enjoy causing that elven wind-bag to suffer just a little, he specifically requested to see the twins.  And for what it’s worth, both of them were really excited about seeing their half-sister.” Percy looks down at Pike.  The gnome looks awkward, dressed not in her armor but in a flowing gold and blue dress. “And you really do look lovely.”

She looks nervous as fuck, which Percy doesn’t understand.  Pike talks to a god and smites undead and single-handedly restores temples - why does a simple dinner with the Marquetian ambassadors seem like it’s going to cause her to vomit on his dress shoes?

Pike’s fingers awkwardly flit towards her hair, pulled up into a high chignon by one of Cassandra’s valets. “This is wrong,” she tells Percy, a spasm of anxiety flitting across her face. “It’s wrong.”

Before he can lean forward and stop her, she digs into the chignon, wisps of white coming free. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t do this.” Delicate fingers yank at the carefully-combed hairstyle, pulling pins free.  In mere seconds she goes from an elegant woman to a wispy dandelion, standing in front of Percy sobbing, hands over her face.

Percy kneels down in front of her and gently puts his arms around her.  She leans into his embrace.  He forces himself to ignore the tears sinking into the dark material of his suit coat. “Pike, can you tell me what’s going on?” he asks softly.

She takes in a shuddery breath. “I’m not… I’m not _like_ those people.”

“What people?  Ambassadors?  No one’s like ambassadors, they’re -”

“No.  Not ambassadors.  People who can… _fancy_ people.” Pike sighs and straightens up.

Percy sits back on his heels. “We really have to talk about Vox Machina’s perceptions of their worth versus those who _appear_ to have worth.”

“I’m a Trickfoot, Percy.  We’re… _they’re_ scum.  Liars, thieves, beggars, tricksters - Wilhand was the first in generations to be anything else.” Pike tries to brush the thick swaths of hair away from her face and mostly fails. “We don’t belong in polite company.  I should… I should just go back to the temple.  You can take Keyleth.”

She turns away from him, bowing her head.

Percy reaches out and grasps her wrist, stopping her. “If I wanted to take Keyleth, I would have asked Keyleth.”

He stands up, her arm still warm in his hand, and moves over to the low nightstand she’s using as a bureau.  On top are a few accoutrements of Pike’s daily life; Percy picks up her hairbrush and hands it to her, then kneels on the floor once more, picking up the scattered hair pins.

“Percy?” Pike asks in a shaky voice. “You’re going to be late.”

“Do your hair however you want,” Percy says, his voice gentle. “And I’m the host.  We’ll be on time, no matter when we get there.”

Pike tilts her head.  She sees no artifice in his face, no lie in his tone.  Without further conversation, she begins dragging her hairbrush through her now-wild locks, fingers itching to twist them back into her ordinary coronet of braids.

Percy looks up at her, her expression now carefully composed, and he has to smile.  One by one he gathers the hair pins and sets them in a row on the top of the nightstand. “Don’t you ever think for one more second that just because you’re the first in your family to do something, or the second, it doesn’t mean you’re worth any less than someone whose lineage is full of nothing but success stories.  As a noble, let me tell you - no one’s lineage is fully successful, and anyone who claims differently is a filthy liar.”

He sits down on the bed.  Pike slowly turns towards him.

“And as your friend, let me tell you - anyone who makes you feel like anything less than a shining beacon of light and hope will not be welcome in my home again.”

That finally gets a smile from Pike, and she quickly darts across the floor to throw her arms around him.  Percy lets out a soft _oof_ \- she might not be wearing her gauntlets, but she’s still ridiculously strong.

“Thanks, Percy,” she murmurs into his stomach.

“You’re welcome.”

 

The night is full of tedious talk, course upon course of tedious food (with a surprisingly delicious dessert course, Percy will give it that), and the usual rounds of dancing with women he doesn’t know.  Cassandra gives him a glare with pursed lips when Pike arrives _sans_ chignon, hair up in the no-nonsense cleric’s braids, but Percy merely gives her a shrug.

And Pike smiles, and makes conversation, and even seems to enjoy all of the banquet food.

And Percy dances with her, loving the way his hands feel in hers, and the way her hair glows in the ballroom’s soft lighting.

Perhaps no one else notices, but she’s a shining beacon in the room.  Maybe just to him.

And maybe that’s all that matters.

 

 

II.

Vex sees Pike stumbling down the hallway, armor clanking as she nearly falls, and she bolts to her feet. “Pike, get down!” she yells.

Pike’s head comes up, sort of, and she tries to focus on Vex’s face.  There’s pain and understanding in Pike’s expression, but also exhaustion.  Pike just can’t move any faster.

Vex freezes.  She’s not going to make it in time.  She sees the red bulk of the monster lumbering up the hallway behind Pike, and she immediately screams over her shoulder for Grog, for Vax, for _anybody_ to get Pike, to save her.

There’s a bright _clang_ as Percy ducks out of a crosswise passageway and grabs Pike by the back of her armor, dragging her down the hallway.  He hears the monster’s approach, calculating its distance from them, and before he can think, he throws them both to the floor.

Flame whips over their heads in a broad, vibrant wave.  Percy tries not to move, tries not to think about how his eyebrows are definitely singed, tries not to imagine this will make him look like Viktor, tries to resist the urge to roll Pike over and check on her.

When the flames stop Grog’s there, hauling both of them up from the floor, carrying Pike back beyond the barricade set up to halt the monster’s progress while Vex and Vax help Percy crawl over.

Percy moves towards Pike, barely conscious on the floor beyond the barricade.  He’s prepared to apologize for throwing her already-injured body to the ground, but instead a chortle bubbles up over his lips.

Vex turns around, giving him a quizzical look.  Keyleth leans over and starts giggling.

“Wha’?” Pike groans.

Percy kneels down, still laughing.  From Pike’s right temple to the back of her head, there’s a swath of burned hair.  In one particular four-inch section all of the hair is gone, blackened wisps the only things remaining, stark against their white counterparts. “I’m so sorry,” he gets out.

“What are you idiots laughing about?” Vax demands. “We’ve got to -”

Pike raises her head to look at him.  Percy feels more than hears Vax swallow a chuckle. “Oh.  I see.  Whenever you’re ready, we have to move.”

“M’ head,” Pike gets out, and she raises one gauntleted hand to the burned portion of hair. “Wha’...?”

Percy leans down and takes her hand away from her hair, putting a healing potion into her grasp instead. “You still look lovely.”

When she sees it in a mirror later, he can tell she doesn’t believe him.  But through her own snorts and giggling tears, she forgives him for laughing.

 

 

III.

As they fall together, breathless, Pike’s hair settles around him like a ghostly cloud.  Her heavy breathing, the grin on her lips, and the blush in her rosy cheeks - all of that in combination with the softly glowing strands falling on his sweaty chest and the night threatens to swallow him in nothing but goodness and love.

“That was interesting,” she says, her voice soft and breathy.

“Is that really what you want to call it?” he asks, a smirk twitching his mouth.

In response Pike puts her head on his bare chest and snuggles in.

“Pike.”

“Hmm?” she asks, sounding sleepy.

“Are you going to sleep there?”

“Do you have a problem with that?” Her head doesn’t move, but her voice gets a little louder, a little sassier.

Percy reaches up with one hand to stroke the top of her head. “I sense I don’t get much of a say in the matter.”

“Nope,” Pike answers, her voice drowsy once more.  She wraps her arms around his neck.

Percy pulls the blanket up over them and continues running his fingers through her hair until her breathing evens out.  It wraps around his fingers like the finest of silk and it feels, oddly, just like home.

 

 

IV.

Pike is small.  Percy knows this.  She’s a gnome, and gnomes are small.  But somehow she never _looks_ small.  She’s always full of life, aggressive, excited, bopping around between the members of Vox Machina like a white-haired ball of joy.  She and Scanlan prove, thousands of times over, that people are sometimes bigger than their bodies.  And as Percy’s come to know, very intimately, Pike is _much_ stronger than she looks, and she has enough stamina to keep him on his toes in a number of arenas, most of them pleasurable.

All of her things are small, too, Percy thinks as he looks around Pike’s room.  Small shoes.  Small clothes in her nightstand/bureau.  Tiny statue of Sarenrae on the windowsill next to a candle, unlit and looking as lonely as the rest of the room.  Unmade and rumpled bed with a small, roughly-Pike-shaped divot in the mattress.

“Percy?”

Percy turns towards the door, seeing Keyleth peeking in hesitantly. “What is it?” he asks. “Is she -?”

“She’s not awake,” Keyleth answers, shaking her head. “I just wondered if you… if you didn’t want to be alone.”

After a beat Percy nods, and Keyleth slips into the room. “What are you looking for?”

“Her hairbrush,” Percy replies. “I want to…”

He finds he can’t say it.  It sounds ridiculous, that at a time like this where Pike’s life hangs in the balance he’s looking for her _hairbrush_ of all things.  He knows it’s crazy to think that brushing and braiding her hair would make a difference now.  But he can’t fight the urge.

“Okay,” Keyleth says, and she starts opening drawers.  She doesn’t ask _why_ , she doesn’t tell him it’s a silly idea, she just helps.

“Keyleth?”

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For doing everything you could for her.”

Keyleth slowly closes a drawer. “I’d do anything for her, Percy.  For any of you.  You know that.”

Percy bows his head, dangerously close to tears.

She holds up the silver-backed hairbrush. “I found it.”

He can’t move.

Keyleth slips her hand into his and squeezes. “We’ll figure this out.  I promise.”

 

The infirmary at this hour of night is dark, lit only by a few soft lanterns.  Allura sits up on her cot as Percy enters.  He hands her a plate of fresh, warm rolls and a mug of cold cider. “Thought you might want something,” he says.

“Thank you,” she says. “There’s been no change.”

“I know.  Keyleth told me.  I just thought…” Percy touches the hairbrush in his coat pocket.

Allura fills in the blanks. “Of course you can sit with her.”

She sets her food and drink on a nearby table. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Percy moves further into the room, closer to Pike’s bed.  He pulls up a low stool and sits down next to her. “Hello,” he whispers, and leans down to press a kiss to her forehead.  Under his lips her skin is papery and hot, and as he turns his head, he hears the whistle in her too-fast breathing.

An illness swept through Whitestone while Vox Machina was gone, something no one had ever seen before and no one truly understood.  Pike faced it on her own, healing the majority of the citizens without much assistance from Allura or Gilmore, whose absence from the city ended only two days before Vox Machina returned.  Thanks to their quick work, no one died and all of the townspeople were either recovered or close to being fully healed.

But Pike, worked to the bone and far too close to exhaustion, was vulnerable and caught the sickness.  Neither Allura nor Gilmore had much of a handle on what it was or how to treat it - that was Pike’s domain - and now she lays in the castle’s infirmary struggling to breathe.

He recounts the symptoms, a torturous litany running through his head: high fever, spasms causing rigid limbs and uncontrollable shaking, fluid filling the lungs, coughing, hallucinations, and some sort of magical component twining it all together like iron fingers.  Percy closes his eyes and prays to whoever’s listening for Pike to be comforted, to be pain-free, to wake, and if for nothing else, for a nightmare-free sleep.

Pike’s head turns to one side and her raspy breathing turns into a croupy cough.  She coughs and coughs, piercing gasps filling the gaps between each spasm.  Her back arches and her hands form into fists, her legs pulling up towards her chest.  Percy stands up, nearly knocking the stool over in the process.  Allura quickly moves towards Pike, putting one hand on her chest and murmuring something comforting.  A soft blue glow emits from Allura’s hand; she looks up at Percy. “I need a cloth,” she says.

Percy shifts into work mode, grabbing a soft towel from the cupboard near the fireplace.  He hands it to Allura.

Allura pulls Pike up from the bed, leaning the tiny cleric over her arm. “Keep coughing, Pike.  Get it out.  Percy, if you would…?”

Awkwardly he moves to the bed and holds Pike up.  Allura changes position, holding the towel under Pike’s mouth to catch whatever she coughs up.

Pike wails and coughs, fighting against Percy’s arms.  Sweat sticks her night-shift to her back and heat spills off her; she sways on the bed, somewhere between consciousness and not.  She coughs, gasping and choking, breaths in between becoming ragged wheezes.  Allura keeps one blue-wreathed hand to Pike’s chest and Percy strokes her back.

Eventually the coughing slows and Pike’s breathing returns to raspy and too-fast; it’s not good but it’s no longer life-threatening.  Allura wipes Pike’s mouth and touches her forehead. “Good work.  Good job,” the older woman murmurs.  She brings a cup to Pike’s lips and makes sure the cleric drinks before she takes it away.

Percy returns Pike to a horizontal position and she rolls away from him nearly immediately, body returning to its restless half-slumber.

Once he’s collected himself, Percy sits back down on the stool and takes her hairbrush from his pocket. “Pike, I brought you… I, uh… I’m going to fix your hair.”

It sounds even more like a stupid idea once he speaks aloud, so he just shakes his head in irritation and starts to his task.  Pike’s hair is matted to her head with sweat, but he gently and patiently works the brush through each and every knotted strand.  At last her hair is smooth and tangle-free.  Percy sets the brush aside and begins to braid it away from her head.  His fingers feel too large and clumsy; several times he swears, drops strands, and has to start again.

Eventually all of Pike’s hair is contained in a series of braids.  None are too fancy, none are too well-executed, but they keep her hair away from her sweaty face and promote the appearance of an almost-normal Pike.

“It’s not as good if you’d done it,” Percy murmurs. “But it’s something.”

Pike rolls onto her back and Percy watches as her entire body goes rigid and begins to shake.

“Allura,” Percy calls out.

From her cot in the corner Allura rises. “The spasms again?”

Percy nods hurriedly.

“We can’t do anything about them, Percival,” Allura says softly. “The fever causes them, and it refuses to break.”

The spasm slows and then ceases.  Percy finds he can breathe again.  Pike’s head rolls towards him and he sees her eyes open.  She lets out a small, confused noise; it reminds Percy of a noise a lost kitten might make.

“I’m here,” he says, and strokes her forehead.

Pike’s eyes slide closed.

Percy sits at her bedside until he can no longer stay awake.  His head dips to his chest and his body bows; after one or two times jerking himself up from that position he settles his head at the edge of Pike’s bed, putting the rest of his body on the floor, and allows sleep to take him.

 

“Per… cy.”

The voice is low.  Crackly.  It doesn’t register in his sleep-fogged brain.

“Per… cy.”

It comes again, and Percy opens his eyes.  He’s face-to-face with Pike.  Somehow in the middle of the night he’d crawled into her bed, something that doesn’t surprise him in the slightest.

Her eyes are open and her expression, while exhausted, is clear. “Per… cy,” she says again, and he realizes she has one hand up to her head.

“Are you all right?” Percy asks, sitting bolt upright.  He presses one hand to her forehead.  It’s cooler.  Not by much, but somewhat. “What do you need?  Should I get Allura?”

Half of a smile twitches her lips upwards. “Wha’... y’ do…?”

Her fingers play over the now-messy braids.

“Oh.” Percy flushes. “I tried… um… I tried to fix your hair.  It was a bit unkempt.”

“Yer nah…” She coughs, once, and then recovers. “... good…”

“Well, of course I’m not good at hair styling,” Percy hurries to say. “I just… I tried to do what you do.”

Pike blinks once… twice… on the third blink her eyes stay closed just a little longer before she opens them again.  It’s clear she’s fading fast.

“I promise I’ll do better,” Percy says gently. “I just… I need you to get well first, so you can show me the right way to do it.”

“‘Kay,” Pike murmurs, and her eyes slide closed again.

Percy kisses her cheek. “I love you.”

“Love… you,” Pike breathes.

He wraps his arm around her boiling body, stroking her head until she relaxes, until he forgets everything that isn’t the two of them there together.


End file.
